en Pe'trett auf fäaschmiete

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Mennonite Portrait wins 2012 British Taylor Wessing Prize

en Pe'trett auf fäaschmiete

 

© Jordi Ruiz Cirera, 2011-12.

And the prize goes to – a portrait of a Mennonite youth.  Yes, in fact, the prestigious Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2012 has gone to London-based, Spanish photographer Jordi Ruiz Cirera for his hauntingly beautiful 2011 photographic portrait of a young Bolivian Mennonite, Magarita Teichroeb. 

Japanese Pottery, Goshen Ind

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Collected Meanings: Japanese Pottery (repost)

en Leem Tap (?)

Collected Meanings:   

Japanese Pottery and Travel Stories

Dick Lehman

Goshen College Visual Arts Gallery

Goshen, Indiana

12 July, 2010

     My first reaction to this exhibit was one of curious pleasure mixed with acute apprehension.  Asian ceramics always tweak my interest.  My aunt Ruby FitzGerald (FitzRu) studied pottery under a Japanese Master (one of the first Western women to do so), and I have always freely lost myself in the Asian ceramics collections of the Art Institute Chicago and the Minneapolis Art Institute.  On the other hand -- of what real use is an Asian ceramics collection? 

    I need not have worried.  Dick Lehman is both an expert in the field of ceramics and an accomplished collector.  Collected Meanings explores decades of collecting and travel experiences in Japan as both a record of an on-going cultural exchange between the United States and Japan, and as an educational introduction to the variety of methods, textures, finishes, and shapes historically common to Japanese ceramics. 

    One might begin Lehman’s tour in one of two ways.  One might rush right into the cases of ceramics and begin exploring, or one might choose to engage the well placed magazine articles and travel memoirs posted along the wall.

Mennonite Cinema

Devil's Playground (DVD, 2002) ****
Lucy Walker, Director, Stick Figure Productions, USA

    On the ten year anniversary of Devil’s Playground, aka Rumspringa, I endeavoured to see this Amish-oriented documentary for the first time.  As a Mennonite, I had formerly avoided this film and its marketing imagery as probably catering to the larger American media appetite for scandal, questionable morality and iconoclastism.  I was greatly surprised to find a film that was straightforward, respectful without being overly romantic and that one that dealt with very real issues while allowing the characters to speak for themselves.  Part of the strength of the film comes from the self-confessions of the directors and production team that they had experienced difficulty finding an angle or even an “in” for the making of what had begun as a rather undefined documentary project on Amish teens.  Rather, the team comprised of Lucy Walker, Steven Cantor, Pax Wassermann and Daniel Kern was forced to discover the topic while filming and to allow the characters to emerge of their own accord.  No agenda, positive or negative – was possible in that the team had little control over the subject matter.  According to the production commentary, the project evolved more like a news story than a scripted documentary.

    Devil’s Playground offers two strengths to Anabaptists.  First, it is a greatly informative look into the very real lives of Amish teens and the concept of rumspringa.  Though the Conservative Amish are often careful to separate themselves from their Mennonite and Mennonite-Amish cousins, there is much in this story that is shared between the more liberal and more conservative branches of this culture – even more so as you go back one and two generations for the Mennonites.  Secondly, for those who are able to read the “bonnet code,” an informed Anabaptist will see Mennonite and Amish film footage juxtaposed against each other to form a seamless celebration of a common ethnic and religious heritage.